Industrial Biotechnology Innovator and Synthetic Biology Accelerator – Flanders (IBISBA-FL)

Biotechnology uses living organisms and their components to make a wide range of products such as
biofuels, chemicals, biomaterials, and ingredients for food, feed and cosmetics. Biological processes
allow flexible use of sustainable feedstocks and can produce novel products with unique properties
and functionalities. Biotechnology is thus a key enabling technology for the transition to a circular
bioeconomy since it can provide low environmental footprint processes for manufacturing industries.
Moreover, it can increase strategic autonomy through the use of locally available resources.
Synthetic Biology has revolutionised the design of microbial systems and biofoundries have recently
emerged as a new technology platform to speed up and automate the creation of microbial cell
factories for industrial purposes. However, most currently used micro-organisms are not well suited
to use sustainable non-food substrates, such as locally available side or waste streams. IBISBA-FL
will therefore investigate alternative non-conventional types of micro-organisms for producing high
added-value (bio)materials and fine and specialty chemicals from these resources. To shorten
development times for realizing these novel value chains, a unique high-throughput state-of-the-art
R&D infrastructure pipeline will be set up with advanced analytics. The infrastructure will be
accessible for academia and industry in Flanders and beyond.